(DELTARUNE) Susie Williams and the Pokerface Mystery
by Nazareth Rose
Summary: Something had drawn on Lancer's smile for him, taken his natural one away. And Susie was determined to find out why.


"The Pokerface Mystery"

...

 _Play the cards with spades to start…_

 _Can't read my, no, he can't read my poker face…_

 _..._

"Heh, look at that, Lance!"

"Look at what?"

'That! Something the King hung up. Heh, he looks kinda ugly! He's got _huge_ teeth, and- You okay? You sort of look a little more pasty-faced than usual..."

"I'm fine, Suze."

"Lance, you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine, Suze. I toldja."

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"You know what."

"You're doing it again. Your face isn't quite… there."

"Whaddya mean?"

Susie tilted her head the way Ralsei liked to make fun of sometimes. She didn't know why. It helped her saw things better. She read somewhere that she needed glasses. Some sort of trait that was passed down by something like an "alligator", how it had a keen sense of smell, how its sense of sight was something to be derided.

It helped her saw things better. Like how Ralsei really wasn't a prince, and the person she was talking to right now saw right through all of Ralsei's magic tricks. She looked for another second before she spoke again.

"It's like your laugh and your smile is drawn on with a cra-yan. I dunno. Can't explain it. 'M not a doctor."

Lancer shifted back. The smile trailed away, water on the beach when the tide pulled in, slipping, slipping, slipping from his twelve- year- old fingers.

"'Sit your dad, Lance?"

Suzie wasn't a doctor, but damn it, she needed to be a psychologist. At least now. So far, all the exposure she'd had to his dad was the poster and a few indiscrete mentions from Lancer in a conversation, tongue in cheek, yet tears so, so deep in soul. She could see it, even if she had 20/60 vision in at least one eye. Something was wrong. Something horribly wrong, though Suzie wasn't quite sure of it yet.

Lancer hopped off the rock, some antic having to do with Ralsei tripping and falling on the ground bringing a smile back to his eyes, genuine. Suzie wanted to turn back the hands on her clock, to prop Ralsei back up to honesty. And prop Ralsei up she did.

"I'm fine, Suze."

Something had made Lancer draw on his smile. And Suzie was determined to find out.

That night, Lancer went to a patch of grass and tried, tried, tried to fall asleep. But a movie kept playing, playing in his head. A broken record- no. A film was a film, putting in all of the senses and not just hearing, the film restarting again and again….

...

 _A week ago._

 _"See…" the Spades King said, shuffling the cards. Hypnotizing. Nauseating. Nauseatingly perfect, settling all into their intended place. "Boy, you have to learn how to rearrange your cards right. To discard what you don't want…"_

 _His hand, able to crush a card without flinching, spared the card, not the child. He slammed his ace of spades on the table._

 _"And take those you want. Keep the gold."_

 _He snatched the next cards, never disturbing the pile. All was quiet for a few seconds as Lancer tried to discern his place. What was he? Was he the ace, or was he the cards his father decided to take?_

 _The Spades King looked down a little while, looking down at his cards, playing them close to his chest. Just like everything Lancer knew. Everything in his life was close to someone's chest. Most of the time, it was his father's, but what he could keep, God, what he could keep, he kept close to his own._

 _Lancer's own heart lifted, just a little bit, clutching the top of a cliff he couldn't quite reach. But he tried. God, he tried. The only hope he could find was in trying._

 _But the King was a falcon. Eyes, talons, all of it. He latched onto the hope, detected it, pounced on it._

 _Killed it._

 _The King's face at first was rid of all expression, but then a smile curled up. Defying, surrounding his face. At first looking like it was embracing, but then choking instead. He looked like he was about to laugh, but he never did._

 _"You think you're gold? You honestly do? I didn't know just how much of a dumbass you were up until now._

 _You big bastard. You think you're gold. Heh, never seen something that pathetic in my life. Get out of my sight."_

The thought ended. One of the stars twinkled a few times.

 _A week ago._

 _"See…" the Spades King said, shuffling the cards. Hypnotizing. Nauseating..._

 _..._

It was night. This Susie knew because of an artificial moon the Spades Kingdom installed. The stars they'd put up in the sky were twinkling, twinkling beyond the force Suzie had ever seen her own night sky light up. Not having city lights here, as opposed to home, tended to do that.

Her mind, even her little smile lifted up, too, and she set off.

...

She'd had a suspicion from the very beginning, really. It wasn't anything new. It was such a long time before Lancer had drawn on his smile, a long time ago, during their first conversation. She managed to remember a few details, but they weren't detailed at all. A fuzzy bush in the corner. The artificial skies.

But she'd remembered, although not all of the exact words she'd said. She'd remembered that she'd mentioned his dad- she hadn't said "the King", but "his dad"-and how for the first time, he just turned away. Like she wasn't even there.

Something was wrong.

And Susie Williams, the fearsome fright of Fifth Street, wanted to find out what.

...

Over that next day, Susie looked for the castle. Tried to, anyway. Her one clue was that Lancer drew on his smile whenever they mentioned the King. Maybe there was something about the castle that terrified him. Maybe it was the way it was built. Maybe it was the way his dad had built it.

Susie almost scared herself with how much she didn't talk. But she was used to it. This brought her a familiar dose of terrifying- even worse than fear. Downright, pernicious horror, not just fear.

But her single conversation went somewhat like this:

"Hey, y'know where I can find the King?"

"Um… kid, he's in a castle…"

"Nah, man, _which_ castle?"

"Damn, you're not from around here, are you?"

"Nah. What'sit matter?"

"Hmmm. Well, the castle's called _Le Chateau de Pique._ " He spelled it, Susie nodding, jotting it down. "Pretty fancy, huh? It's from a country up there, _way_ up there with the humans and all of that, that's supposed to have a _ton_ of cards."

The pencil stopped moving. "Thanks, man."

"Hey kid, you sure you don't need a map or something?"

"Nah. I've got one."

She could practically feel the man's eyes widening, even if she couldn't see it. "Damn," the man repeated. He laughed a little, shaking his head. "Good luck out there, kid."

...

Others weren't as nice as the man. Some spat at her, some swore a few handfuls of paragraphs at her. One tried to "trip", ending up between her feet and looking straight up, the satisfaction reddening his face.

Good thing she had her axe.

 _Nothing I'm not used to,_ She thought. A slight smile, amused, pressed down on her lips, as the man dashed to one of the other streets, swearing.

Nothing she wasn't used to.

...

"I'm fine, Suze."

Well, guess what, Lance? I am, too.

...

 _To Be Continued..._  
A/N: Sorry for the misunderstanding earlier! I realized (too late) that this had a lot of formatting issues that made it difficult to understand. Also, I cleared up the text. I have a big issue with "showing, not telling". I tend to have _too much_ of showing, and not enough telling.


End file.
